In search of the most unusual and wildest festivities, the author was pelted with beans, amazed by giant snow cows, stampeded in a temple full of men wearing nothing but "nappies," befriended by alien abductees, and much more while attending a Hogmanay in Scotland, a Tomato Festival in Ripley, Tennesee, a Bean Throwing Festival in Tokyo, and a Vodou Festival in Haiti. The side-splitting stories will inspire readers to attend—or create—peculiar festivals of their own, and on a more serious note, explore and appreciate other cultures.

    In this book the jungle scenario is crowded with a hyena, a jackal, a bear, a barking deer and a few snakes which the hunter-writer tamed and kept as pets around him.Kenneth Anderson (1910-74) hailed from a Scottish family settled in India for six generations. His love for the denizens of Indian jungle led him to big game hunting and eventually to writing real-life adventure stories. His books are hailed as classics of jungle lore.

    Created in the 1890s by George Washington Vanderbilt, a member of one of America's wealthiest families, the estate combined a 250-room French Renaissance-style chateau with 125,000 acres of gardens, forests, and working farms. Biltmore House served as Vanderbilt's primary residence for almost 20 years. After Mr. Vanderbilt's death in 1914, life at Biltmore continued for his wife Edith and daughter Cornelia. In 1930, Cornelia Vanderbilt Cecil and her husband, Hon. John Francis Amherst Cecil, opened Biltmore House--the largest private home in the United States--to the public, firmly establishing the Asheville area as a major tourist destination.